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Drift diving with a ball, or without a ball?

Drift diving with a ball, or without a ball?

Author: d2reid Posted: 06-Sep-06 IP: Logged

This got pretty long winded, so let me start off by saying always ascend under a dive flag. We dive off of Palm Beach where the Gulf Stream comes close to shore. This results in current. Sometimes mild, sometimes very strong. Anchor diving is a lot of hard work in this environment, so the most popular way to dive is to do a drift dive. For those of you who have not done this; a drift dive is accomplished by throwing the divers overboard without anchoring the boat. A prerequisite for this is to leave some one on the boat to drive it around and follow the divers. This is made easy by having the divers carry a line attached to a float with a flag on it. I have been experimenting with different types of dive "flags", balls, floats, etc. I started off with a Styrofoam ball with a stick in it that had a dive flag attached to it. Then graduated to an orange ball that is normally used as a bumper for boats. Then back to a different shaped Styrofoam ball. Next came the inflatable tube with a flag. And finally an Oceanic Lift Bag that is shaped like a safety sausage. The advantage to the lift bag is that it can be inflated underwater. In most cases it is pretty simple. Dive with the flag attached to the line. On the bottom you hold on to the line. As you start to ascend you reel the line in. When you get to the top you break surface under the flag. The boat follows the flag, careful not to drive over it. The stronger the current becomes the more complicated it becomes. If you use to small a ball it is easy for the diver to pull the ball under the surface. The boat then ?loses? the divers. In strong current it is possible for the drag from the divers and the force of the surface current to pull the ball 20 feet under water. In the event of a storm coming during the dive it is easy for the boat to get blown off of the ball. You compensate by using a more buoyant ball. So you graduate to the big orange bumper ball. But soon you discover that the ?unsinkable? ball will actually pull you around. Add some stiff cross wind to the surface current and the person ?carrying the ball? has to work really hard. Depending on the person this can turn a 40 minute dive into a 10 minute dive. So you compromise and use a little bit smaller ball, but bigger than the first ball. You get a better percentage of ?float?, but the driver still winds up losing the ball in really bad conditions and/or the ball carrier still has to work hard. Now you have gained some experience, and you get scientifical about it. You find a ball that has a lot of buoyancy, but has reduced drag. You guessed it, the tube. This device works much better that any Styrofoam ball I have used because it is almost impossible to pull under, yet it doesn?t drag you as much as the resistant orange balls do. But is has it?s limitations also. When it met these two dives; Governors Walk, and the Hole in the Wall off of Jupiter we had some troubles. In the case of Governors Walk we had to abort the dive when I tied the tube off to the wreck. We explored a bit, and when I went to untie the ?guitar string tight? line it snapped when it brushed up against a rough edge. Our ball now became a kite and went flying off into the wind. Fortunately I had briefed the driver on this eventuality. When she saw the ball take off at an unusual speed and direction she simply stayed put and watched for the lift bag to surface. The hole in the wall is a cave at 130 feet. It's a cave, short, but still a cave. So how do you carry a ball through the cave? So we had to do this dive with the lift bag. After we exit the cave we float the lift bag from a spool. The boat stays over the cave until it spots the bag, and then follows it. Now we have graduated into a modified drift dive. We know we are going to hook up on a stationary object. We know the current is strong and will make any ball and flag hard to hold on to when we stop. So I trained the co-Captain on how to return to the drop point of a drift dive. We jump off, go to the wreck, or cave, swim around a little, and when we get ready to leave we float the lift bag on a spool. The boat knows to stay in one spot until the lift bag surfaces. Sounds pretty simple, but then reality checks in. In order for this to work it takes practice, understanding on what is happening above and below the water, timing, and two or three back up plans. The person driving the boat has to be an excellent navigator. How do you keep a boat stationary over a fixed object without reference to land or any other fixed object while compensating for current pushing you one way and wind pushing you another? Can you do this while spotting bubbles? The person driving the boat has to know how long the total dive should last, how long the group expects to stay stationary. The divers have to agree to limit their time on the wreck so they don?t scare the boat driver half to death. So now that we are getting really good at this type of thing. I got the brainy idea that I could follow drift divers without a dive flag and be able to pick them up. Now remember, I have been practicing for this for over 7 years. I think I?m pretty hot stuff when it comes to following divers. Wrong: The dive was on a straight line. There are three wrecks that have boulders between them. Very easy to follow this path. The current was relatively mild, the seas are calm. I dropped the divers on the wreck. Stayed with the bubble until my attention was diverted. While I was looking away my divers reversed course, this was not in the plan. So now I am trying to reacquire the bubbles in the area the divers should be. In the mean time some fisherman where approaching. I had a revelation. What if my divers decided to ascend right now. I am off of them so they do not have the protection of the dive boat to keep others away, they don?t know they are unprotected, and the fishermen may or may not be able to recognize divers ascending. Dumb, dumb, dumb. This will never happen to me again. It worked out ok. I did reacquire the bubbles before the ascent was made. My divers came up under my boat just as planned. So now I have a new rule for the boat. Divers ascend under some type of marker, flag, float, or known boat. Obviously an emergency would be the exception, but it adds more danger to the emergency.     Reply | Report to Moderator